Romans 6:6

knowing this Not precisely = "for we know this;" but more fully, "as those who know this." This knowledgeis to be a working motive in the new life.

our old man Cp., for illustrative passages, Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 3:16; Ephesians 4:22; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:9; 1 Peter 3:4. In view of these, the word "self" in its popular use ("a man's true self," &c.) appears to be a fair equivalent for "man" here. Meyer here gives "unser altes Ich," ("our old Ego"). Here the Apostle views the Christian before his union to Christ as (figuratively, of course,) another person;so profoundly different was his position before God, as a person unconnected with Christ.

is crucified with him Better, was crucified. Here again the idea is the Representative Death of the Substitute, appropriated and made efficacious for justification, by faith. Not merely Death, but the Cross, is here named; the ideas of shame and pain being specially fit here, to emphasize both the requirements of the law and the claims of grace.

the body of sin i.e. the body regarded as the special seat and stronghold of sin. Cp. 1 Corinthians 9:27; and below, Romans 6:12-13. The body is "the external basis of human nature;" "the medium for the reception … of life;" and thus "the sinfulness of human nature is … manifested by means of it." (Cremer.) In connexions like the present it nearly = "the flesh."

destroyed Better, cancelled, as to its fatal power on the spirit. Same word as Romans 3:3; Romans 3:31; where see notes. Cp. especially 2 Timothy 1:10; where E. V. "abolished." For a comment on the meaning here see Romans 8:3, and 1 Corinthians 9:27.

serve Lit., be slaves to; and so in the whole context. This clause explains the last: "The body of sin" is so "cancelled" as to its power that the "inner man" no longer is the slave, or obedient victim, of sin, but combats it, with final victory. Before our "death with Christ," the will, although it was swayed by conscience away from single acts or courses of sin, had never decisively revolted from sin as such, under the one effective motive supreme love to the Holy God as the God of Peace. Hence, little as he might know it, the man's will was, in the main respect of all, in harmony with sin, and the tool of sin; for sin in its essence is the not-loving the true God. And the impending doomof sin, (in other words, sin as unforgiven sin,) was the strength and secret of this bondage; for till the removal of the doom the man could not love God; God could not be to him the God of Peace. Hence St Paul speaks now immediately of deliverance from the doomof sin as implying deliverance from its bondage.